Wiki multiple CC for patient- can provider bill only one dx @ a time

[swallace1]

I work with an Orthopedic provider who routinely see patients with multiple ortho related ailments, i.e. back pain, shoulder pain and knee pain. The practice of the office is to treat and bill for only one ailment at a time. For example, shoulder pain, gets worked up and treated first, then patient comes back for back pain, etc.

Does anyone have any insight regarding the positive and/or negative issues, surrounding this practice.

Thanks

Sheila Wallace, CPC, COSC

 

[thomas7331]

I think that in any practice, there are limitations on what a provider can fit into a single visit and it is to be expected that they may have to defer treatment of some of the problems to another visit due to time constraints. However, I personally think it would be a mistake to have a blanket policy to only treat one ailment at a time. If there isn't enough time for it all, why not just schedule them for a longer visit to try to cover everything else at the next visit? For one thing, it is poor customer service to force patients to make multiple trips into the office rather than deal with as many of the problems as can be handled at a single visit. I would think this policy could eventually cause patients to seek treatment elsewhere as it would lead to more copays and more time going to and from appointments and waiting. I would also think that this would be an extremely inefficient use of provider and staff time to have to schedule multiple visits, make reminder calls and check in the patients, enter separate medical record notes, review the past patient records again at every new visit, code the encounters, bill them, and follow up for payment. And I really don't see any upside to all this. Perhaps whoever created this policy could explain the rationale for it to you, but if it were me, I would be questioning this as a potentially poor and irrational business practice.